Krow Noir
Herman The Director Herman is the adventurous and scheming director and de facto leader, because he had the idea to make the movie. He has been friends with Lloyd for a long time, for reasons neither can entirely explain. In contrast to Lloyd, Herman likes to act first, and will never question good news. Lloyd The Writer Steady and methodical, Lloyd would rather understand a problem before he tackles it. He clashes with Herman, but the two are close friends. Although both have crushes on Milly, his is far older. Eckhart The Head of Filming and Special Effects Though a nerd in appearance, Eckhart is an enigma. Impassive behind thick glasses, obsessed with cameras and cinematography, and a known grade-skipper, he is the image of uncool. However, Eckhart is also aloof and steady, and this is cool. Those who can't puzzle him out would rather avoid him, but this is fine with Eckhart. Violet The Makeup Designer The only student who can boast equal skill in beautifying the face with cosmetics and splattering a corpse prop with fake blood, Violet is at first cold and unapproachable. This is a only a façade, however, because with friends she is quick to champion her passion: the glorious history of violence and cruelty. Milly The Lead Actress A beautiful, confident teenage girl and the unknowing object of Herman and Lloyd's romantic fantasies. She is cool enough to hand out with them, and even has skills as a fighter, but somehow rarely manages to see the supernatural. Sean The Lead Actor Hated intensely by Herman and Lloyd, Sean is Milly's boyfriend and only attained his part in the movie because she vouched for him. He's actually fairly normal, but isn't too sure about hanging out with children. Paperboy The Scouter A nameless, waifish street urchin who delivers the papers at the crack of dawn. Perpetually wide-eyed and packing a soul-rattling hollow gaze, he is the undisputed number one authority about all the weird things that happen in Krow. Chingis The Cameraman Chingis is easy-going and friendly. He always wears a paper bag over his head, because removing it would reveal his identity and expose him to great shame. Oliver The Editor Though geeky and unassuming, Oliver is actually the son of a master swordsman. It doesn't show, and Oliver is useless in a fight. The only member of the crew to actually believe seeking out weird and supernatural things is dangerous, he mostly tags along to keep his friends safe. Episode 1: An advertisement comes on for a new horror movie, which is absurdly over the top and which the reviewers say is the most horrifying thing ever created (ala Ghost Explosion 6). (Here I am envisioning two sibling characters, possibly opposite sexes.) In fact, it is probably Herman and Lloyd and one of their sisters. They resolve to see it, and we see their bedroom, which is decked out in horror movie memorabilia. Meanwhile, we see the goings on of other characters as well, who are also excited. How they plan to get into this super hard R-rated movie is handwaved. They’ll think of something. The director of the film is probably identified. Violet has an even bigger horror shrine. Eckhart is impressed by the camera angles (the director shuns computer effects). Chingis (needs a new name, badly) is excited by the action. On the way to the movie, they end up running into Milly and Sean, who are on the way to the movie together. (Sean, in this version, is the rival they want to hate, but he’s actually very cool and always nice to them.) All the kids end up meeting together, but an odd event causes all of them to lose their tickets. They run into someone, perhaps on an old, creepy shopkeeper who tells them that they do not need that movie – there are much scarier things all around them. They do not believe him, so he points out a few. They are underwhelmed, hoping to get to their movie. Apparently, they had the very best tickets, with these, the theater people won’t even ask whether you are old enough to see this incredibly gory R-rated movie. They bought these from an enterprising school bully, and don’t have any money to get more. The shopkeeper tells them at last that he has one other idea – they can make their own movie. They are uninterested, until he points to an ad that has been hanging in his window for some time: make a movie and win $$$! They decide they could try to make a horror movie, and realize each other’s skills, although they may still need to recruit a bit more talent, which they go on to do. As the shopkeeper points out, nobody has entered, so they need to enter the bare minimum of movie (paraphrase Aristotle on what makes a story) and decide to make a horror movie. They ask the shopkeeper if there is anything really scary in town, and he mentions some terrifying sounding things, but they are underwhelmed. They decide they’ll look around and see if there is anything really very scary in this town. They discuss how they will find actors, and run into Milly, who explains that she and Sean lost their tickets to the same guy who took those of the kids. They realize that Milly can be their lead actress. (Later Herman and Lloyd will discuss if she is more of an ingenue or a bad girl – which has ramifications for whether she lives or dies. Probably they decide that the former is favorable -better she not be getting to familiar with Sean, and also they want her to live.) They go out somewhere scary, like an abandoned mill or a graveyard, where they begin to shoot, although they have no script. Probably Eckhart never lost his ticket, but Violet pulled him along, saying that he could not see it if she didn’t. This led, of course, to the loss of his ticket. They run into some very odd, possibly paranormal goings on, but most of the adversity comes from the location. They manage to get out, but realize that their footage is not very good, and they probably need an actual script. Also, they need more characters. Milly volunteers Sean, which Lloyd and Herman oppose, but she points out that he can actually act, and they reluctantly agree. All the kids had tried, but various forms of youthful awkwardness had made them determine that they were not suitable for “face” roles. I imagine Chingis getting the voice-over role, despite being dubiously qualified for it. As it turns out: Lloyd’s voice cracks, Herman gets stage fright and forgets his lines, Chingis cannot take off the paper bag, Eckhart cannot lose the glasses, Violet’s delivery is extremely wooden and unconvincing, There are bunnies in the cemetery. At the end, the thief and or the shopkeeper walk out of the movie, talking about how scary the movie was. Episode 2: After getting almost nothing from the prior day’s shoot, Lloyd and Herman decide to write a script and argue over who is the writer and who is the director. They pitch some ideas, with various movie posters appearing on screen. They decide that a horror movie marathon is in order, but are inspired by rivalry with Sean to raise the stakes a little, and hold it some place scary. They also have ideas about scaring Sean, idea being that they’ll try to scare him any way they can, and if they need deniability, they can say it was for the movie. They try this, but Sean takes a take charge attitude and things get more intense. They learn that he is tougher than they though, and realize that while he is still a rival, he is a worthy opponent, and a respectable lead actor as well. Meanwhile, their attempts to scare Milly into at least one of their arms backfires horribly. (I’m also toying with the idea of an extremely shy girl as a ghost-writer) Episode 3: The kids decide to finally get down to some filming down at the waterfront, and point out that the golden hour for filming is at right after dawn. Most of the kids decide that it is more fun to play in the water, instead of filming, to the frustration of Lloyd and Herman. A very off-putting, spacy yet friendly park ranger warns them about the lake monster, but doesn’t seem at all concerned that they are unsupervised children. Possibly he also mistakes Milly for their mother. They eventually run into trouble with the lake monster (which they dismiss because it is a sturgeon or large cat fish, in spite of being 30 feet long). Possibly much of this episode was actually filmed by Eckhart. I could see a part where they run into a fisherman obsessed with finding the monster, who boat ends up destroyed. Episode 4: Other ideas: Doctor’s appointment (leading to hospital horror), found footage episode, werewolf episode, episode where they attempt special effects, sneaking into a scary person’s house, rash of alien sightings in town, ranching episode, video game turns out to be a little to real, sewer pipe that is a portal to another world (but maybe isn’t), character starts seeing ghosts, episode where characters get sick, schoolkid claims to be a witch,